Hello!

[Lee_Grace]

Hello everyone!

Would just like to introduce myself here...my name is Lee, living near York and I am in a relationship with a lovely lady by the name of Grace from the Philppines who is currently living and working in Morocco where I have just returned from visiting her and as we are very much serious about each other and for our relationship to develop further we would like to be together here in the UK...not too sure about which visa to go for? I know for a partner visa my annual salary needs to be over £18,600 which I am just under the threshold at this moment in time though I am working on this. Any other routes we can go down? Any advice from you more experienced kind folk here would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

Lee & Grace

[Dedworth]

Hi Lee welcome and good luck with your mission, I'm sure you will get plenty of tips and advise on here. What is it with York there are untold Philippine fetishists there

[grahamw48]

Welcome Lee and grace.

Dedworth...have you seen the women here in York ?

[imagine]

Hi Lee and grace. welcome to the forum

[bigmarco]

Hi Lee and welcome to the forum

[ReemaOwens]

welcome to the forum

[DaveUK]

Welcome to the forum!

[Terpe]

Hello Lee welcome here to the forum.

There are a number of visa options available to you, however you'll need to be clear about your strategy.
If you want to have your g/f to join you in UK to continue development of your relationship your best route would be with a General Visit visa.
The UKBA page specifically for UK Visit Visa's can be found here and will help you to choose which category is the most suitable for you. It also explains what you are allowed to do while you are in the UK as a visitor.
It's well worth taking a look and checking out all of the links provided.
Anyone coming to the UK as a visitor, will usually be granted a visa with a validity for up to 6 months.
The cost of a visit visa is very low at £78


On the other hand if you are both sure of your relationship and you both want to settle here in the UK then the standard route will be either an application for Fiance(e) / Proposed Civil Partner for marriage in UK, or alternatively, if you're already hitched, then it'll be an application for a Partner/Spouse/civil partner visa.
In principle both of these routes lead to settlement and have much the same eligibilty requirements.
It has to be said though that of late there appears to have a few Fiance(e) visa refusals based on the ECO not being convinced on intention to get married.

There are forum guides for both Fiance(e) and Spouse Visa that might help.

Take a look here for Fiance(e)

and here for Spouse

The cost of these visa's are rather expensive at £826

Good Luck with your quest and in whichever route you feel is best for you.

[Arthur Little]

Hello, Lee ... to the filipino/uk forum. Please follow the guidelines provided by my friend and fellow Moderator, Terpe ... and good luck to you & Grace in your burgeoning relationship.

[Lee_Grace]

Hello everybody again!

Many thanks to all of you for your lovely messages... and thank you Terpe for the advice. Myself and Grace are more than likely to go down the tourist visa to begin with and we will keep you informed of our progress...

[Arthur Little]

we will keep you informed of our progress...

... please do!